MASON — A workshop next week aims to explore the many facets of America’s third largest practiced religion.
Sponsored by Sinclair Community College’s Courseview Campus and Mason High School, “The Muslims I Know: Myths, Movements, and the Media” is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 28. at Mason Middle School auditorium, 6370 Mason-Montgomery Road.
The workshop will be presented by Mara Ahmed, who filmed “The Muslims I Know” in 2008. The 55-minute documentary attempts to answer the question “Where are the moderate Muslims?” and focuses on Ahmed’s small American Muslim community of Rochester, N.Y.

The two-hour interactive workshop will feature a screening of the movie, followed by a discussion of Islam and Muslims among students, faculty, staff and area residents.

Ahmed, a Pakistani-American mother of two, earned her masters of business administration and a master’s degree in economics, but quit her job as a financial analyst to go back to school and study art, including filmmaking classes.

Along the way, she noticed the mainstream media giving short shrift to the Muslim community in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.
“They didn’t really ever showcase people like myself and all the people I know, the vast majority of whom are Muslims,” Ahmed said. “There was this constant discussion about Islam and Muslims, but Muslims were not allowed to be a part of it.”

When letters to the editor aimed at providing more balance to what was being said about Muslims and their views went unpublished, she used her personal savings to finance the creation of a documentary.

“I thought this will be the only way I will be able to get my voice out and the voices of other people who are like me and feel the same frustration,” Ahmed said. “That was the whole idea of the film, is just to give the vast majority of Muslims a platform so that they could finally be heard.”